


First Blush

by ZafiraMente



Series: Universe 78726 [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 22:29:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18508363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZafiraMente/pseuds/ZafiraMente
Summary: The mission where he was sent to kill the Black Widow wasn't the first time he had met her. MCU compliant.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Damn Joss Whedon for sucking me into another fandom. I have all these fics swirling around and I can't get rid of them without writing them down! I don't own anything of course. Please comment. I like comments.
> 
> I finally made an account over here and will be porting over my fics as I have time/motivation. :) I might make minor edits for either better continuity, grammar or writing. But hopefully no major overhauls.

 

Many people, Fury included, think that the mission Hawkeye was sent on to terminate Natasha Romanoff was the first time they met. In hindsight, Clint Barton was grateful he was loose on the details of their first meeting. He would have never been given the later assignment; someone else would have, and they would have completed the mission without hesitation.

* * *

"Fuck." " _Eбля._ " Two languages, one common concern. The rebels who were storming the compound were putting a major cramp on the plans of two people, both with very different goals and backgrounds.

The Black Widow was working her mission, under cover as the fiancée of the son of the official who lived at the compound. As far as the boy knew, they were desperately in love and planning a wedding, no idea that the woman he loved was using him for access to his father's files and contacts. She had been working this particular mission for 7 months, consistently feeding information back to the Red Room.

Hawkeye was working his mission, silently inching through the ductwork to gain access to a hidden room that held a prototype weapon that SHIELD was interested in. This was his second day in, and he had been completely on schedule. Infiltrate the compound, find an opportunity to slip away and get the weapon. He had come in with the gardening crew, and slipped into the vents at his first opportunity. Azarov, the man he was stealing from, was passed out dead drunk, helped by the sedative that Hawkeye had put in his vodka. While his mission was to get in and out without Azarov being the wiser, making it harder to pin on the Americans, he also wasn't too concerned if the man OD'd on the combo of liquor and barbiturates.

He was slithering his way through a passage when he heard the gunshots. He quickly moved to a location where he could view the situation and he saw a young man and woman looking with concern out a window that was getting increasingly lit from a firefight.

Before there was a moment to decide what to do, a bullet pierced the wall, and then the chest of the young Russian man. The Black Widow was genuinely shocked; she had not been expecting the rebels to be quite so well-armed that they could pierce the walls from that distance. She immediately left the window and scanned for her exits.

Hawkeye made a split-second decision. He opened the grate and motioned for her to join him. He knew the woman was the fiancée of the man who just died, and her record was clean from the intel he had been given. He was a little surprised that she didn't hesitate and easily scrambled up to join him.

She helped him replace the grate and soundlessly he motioned for her to follow, which she did. He had already had aborted his primary mission and went to a secondary, which was to make sure the weapon was not going to get into anyone else's hands. He led the woman through the ventilation system, gaining a strange look when he dropped something through one of the grates. She didn't speak, and he didn't answer the look, just moving on to his exit plan. The charge he dropped in the room was enough to destroy the house and everything in it for a wider radius than he liked to think about. It was on a timer – they now had seven minutes to get out and get as far away as possible.

His curiosity was piqued by the fact that this seemingly upper-class woman was able to keep up with him and more oddly, was not crying, panicking, or filled with questions as to who he was and what he was doing. Hawkeye took it as a blessing though; it made the journey much faster. They quickly moved through the vents, coming out on the roof where he had a toy waiting that Fury had given him. Half hang-glider, half jet-pack, it was silent and hopefully with the commotion below, they wouldn't note the solid black shape flying from the roof into the forest. He was thankful that the woman was small - otherwise he might have had more concerns about whether it could hold both their weights. She allowed herself to be strapped to him as if they were doing a tandem jump without a word and the two people took off into the night.

The soldier was relieved; the flight path was smooth and no one seemed to have caught on to their departure. He calculated the time left before everything blew and silently willed the craft to go faster. The woman pointed down to the ground; they were off the roof now and she thought it was high time to land; they could fight their way through the rebels if needed. He shook his head curtly; all his attention on getting even further from the blast that he knew was coming.

The Black Widow was beginning to be concerned; she could have gotten out of that house by herself, but the man she was hanging onto currently had provided a quicker and cleaner out. Plus, he was a mystery and getting intel on him would be a bonus now that her other mission was terminated. But now she was stuck in the air and she wasn't sure why he was still flying. They were still near fighting but she had no doubt that he was more than capable of getting through as well as she could. She was considering whether she should take him out or just go along with the trip when all of a sudden she heard and felt a giant _WHUMP_ as a hand of warm air sent them tumbling end over end into the woods below.

' _This is not my best day ever,_ ' thought Hawkeye as the charge went off and they were still not quite far enough away. He wasn't sure whether the 23 second discrepancy was his fault or a problem with the timer, but he would be investigating that as soon as he returned. That, combined with the extra weight of the woman slowing his flight meant they were more in the air than he wanted to be when it went off, and not quite as far away as he would have liked. The concussive force from the explosion sent the glider spiraling out of control. He struggled to try and right it and regain control, without success. As they neared impact, he curled his body around his passenger and released their harness. He tried to roll with the woman, again surprised at how well she was able to read what he was trying to do, the two of them dispersing the impact reasonably well through continued motion.

"I can't believe that worked," Hawkeye muttered to himself, cutting himself free from the woman.

"Me neither," she replied in perfect English, causing his eyebrows to go up a little further.

"Who are you working for?" he asked, chiding himself mentally for not realizing earlier that she had to be a spy, just like him.

"Who are _you_ working for?" she countered with annoyance. He couldn't think she was that stupid. She paused, then asked "Why did you take me out of there?"

A smirk, "Bad intel. Mine said you were innocent, you had no idea of what those assholes were doing." He looked her up and down: barely injured, clearly able to keep up with him and adapt to the unusual situation she was now in. "Obviously that was wrong."

She gave him a withering look, "I was getting information, just like you were. I had nothing to do with their weapons." Though she would have, if she had been told to – she left that part out. Something about the man in front of her didn't make her want to admit that part.

He clearly didn't believe her, "You could at least say 'thank you' for saving your ass."

Now it was her turn to smirk, "Your way out was creative, but I could have gotten out on my own, without problem."

He seemed dubious, but the returned look from her convinced him otherwise. "Well, no matter what, we need to keep moving. I'm sure you have an extraction point to rendezvous, and so do I." She nodded and they both went silently into the night.

Quietly, Hawkeye contacted SHIELD, explained the mission had been compromised, but that the weapon had been destroyed. He left out the part about the woman – he wasn't going to leave her out entirely in his accounting, but it would be too difficult to explain over the comm., it would be better to detail in his full report.

The Black Widow was doing almost exactly the same thing: radioing ahead about the loss of the mission. She also left out the other spy she sighted. She wanted to alter the course of events to make sure she was left in the best light possible; the Red Room didn't take perceived weakness well.

Both respective handlers informed the agents that there was a snow storm coming, extraction would be delayed. They were advised to seek shelter and not push forward. Both took the warning seriously. It was late fall in Russia and even the best survivalists could be killed in a bad storm.

"I assume you heard about the storm?" Hawkeye called out into the night. He wasn't yelling by any means, more just a conversational tone directed to no one. He figured there was a decent chance she was still in his immediate vicinity – they hadn't had that long to walk.

An annoyed looking Black Widow reappeared to his left. "Of course." Hawkeye was impressed. Not many people could sneak up on him.

"Fine." He wasn't worried about her per se – it was clear she knew how to handle herself. But, they were in the same line of work and professional courtesy and all. "I am heading to a cabin about 10 klicks from here." His goal was twofold: clearly she was a native to the country, her features screamed Russian. That could be an asset to him potentially if the weather got really bad; she would have more experience in it than him. And he wanted to see if that was where she was heading as well, or if she was going to push through to beat the storm. If she was, he would follow her trail for the same reason as before. He wouldn't admit the fact he was slightly concerned she was in a lightweight dress and no coat.

Her annoyance deepened, "I can find shelter on my own." Even more annoyed that the cabin he was referring to _was_ the shelter she was planning on bunking in for the night.

Hawkeye rolled his eyes, "I wasn't saying you couldn't. Just figuring out the field of play myself." He paused, considering something. "We could extend our truce a little further, just to make it through the storm. It increases our chances of success."

"I'm not going to tell you anything about who I work for." Her voice was now bored.

"Neither am I. I just don't want to get found as a human popsicle from one of these goddamn storms your country has."

An eyebrow of hers rose, "And why do you think I am Russian?" Her English was perfect without any trace of a Russian accent. It was his turn to roll his eyes and look annoyed. His eyes went from her face to her feet and back up, clearly communicating that she looked the part. She smirked at his assumption; he was right but it was still an assumption.

She huffed quietly. There were a lot of options, including killing him where he stood, but she didn't feel the urge. While she didn't need his help, he had been helpful. "Fine. But try anything, and I will not hesitate to kill you."

"Likewise, of course." Hawkeye was vaguely amused by that proclamation. This was going to be an interesting night.

* * *

 

Hawkeye and the Black Widow arrived at the cabin at about the same time, though they were not purposefully keeping pace with each other. It was just a ramshackle hunting cabin built decades before. They were lucky that the roof was still mostly intact. It would leak with rain or when the snow melted, but for their purposes, it would do.

"Chimney's blocked," the woman proclaimed after a quick investigation. Years of bird's nests meant that any attempt to build a fire there would just fill the cabin with smoke. He was more prepared for the cold than she was due to their rapid exit, but just being out of the worst of it would be good enough. She had been trained to withstand almost anything.

"You should have grabbed your coat before we left." Hawkeye said with a grin.

"Before or after you planted the explosives?" she replied dryly.

He shrugged, the grin still present, "Probably before. We barely cleared the radius as it was."

The Widow arched a brow again, "You call that clearing the radius?"

"It would have been cleaner if I hadn't had extra weight," he said pointedly. He held a hand up to stop further conversation on the topic though. "But remember, no talk about work. No interrogations. No fishing."

Acknowledging her agreement, she nodded and then said, "Let's see if we can grab some foliage for bedding." He nodded and followed her out to gather what they could, the first flakes of snow starting to come.

They weren't able to get much before the snow started falling in earnest. Each set up a makeshift pallet in a different corner. Hawkeye looked between the two, and the woman who was clearly not as well dressed for the cold. "We'd probably be more comfortable if we combined them," he suggested lightly.

She turned on him, eyes almost disappointed, "Really, that's what this is about?" She muttered some curses to herself in Russian, surprised at how disappointed she felt.

"No!" Hawkeye was now annoyed, he was trying to help the woman, not seduce her. "I meant that it's going to be damned cold tonight, we both don't have enough insulation and we both know that sleeping next to each other is the best way to stay warm." He shook his head, "Talk about ego." He went over to his pallet and buried himself in the leaves and small branches to start conserving heat.

What she hated the most was that he was right. They would be better off next to each other. She grumbled as she gathered her pallet up and then dumped it, mostly on the man's smirking face. "Move over." She didn't bother with a verbal threat: it was clear in her face. If his hands wandered, he would be lucky if he just lost them.

He raised his arm and motioned with his head for her join him. No more hesitation on her part, she burrowed under the leaves with him, in the crook of his arm. The temperature was dropping rapidly and she was grateful for the warmth of his body, though she wouldn't admit it. He carefully removed his arm from the outside sleeve of his coat, offering it to her, so she could take it and feel she had some control over the warmth.

After an hour, both of them had settled, but neither would sleep, afraid of what the other might do. "We're going to be better off if we can actually sleep." Hawkeye muttered.

"Please, go ahead, don't let me stop you," the Black Widow replied. They were now holding each other tightly, trying to conserve as much body heat as possible as the snow storm raged.

"Fine." He had already made his choice. For whatever reason, his gut told him to trust the woman who was now in his arms. And he knew she would never sleep unless he did. So he closed his eyes and allowed his breathing to slow and to quickly drop into sleep, like so many soldiers could.

She didn't believe it at first, but she realized he really was asleep finally. She couldn't decide whether to be insulted or flattered. He either totally underestimated her skills or he thought she was trustworthy enough to actually do it. She knew he wasn't stupid, but the level of trust he had handed her…Almost the same as the amount she handed him when she decided to not kill him and to share the cabin and bed with him.

Despite his sleep, his arms stayed locked around her, his larger body slightly covering hers without being oppressive. It was clear he was trying to keep her warm. She swore lightly at herself in Russian for her foolishness, but still allowed herself to fall asleep in the stranger's arms.

In the morning, they both woke with the sunrise. The storm had died out. There were several inches of snow, but not so much that they wouldn't be able to travel. Without another word, the pair separated, nodded professionally to each other and slipped out into the morning to meet with their respective handlers. They never even asked each others' names.

For Natasha, that night had started a change. The man had trusted her, even without clear reason or need. He didn't paw her, expect sexual payment, or hurt her at all during their interaction. Everything she had been conditioned to believe was that the only acceptance she would ever be able to find would be from the Red Room. But that was a lie. There was someone outside of the Red Room too.


	2. II

Clint sat in Coulson's office, looking over the file he had been handed. It was pretty brutal, the information inside.

"How did we get this intel?" Clint asked; it was pretty detailed and it was definitely not anything that would be easy to come by.

Coulson nodded grimly, "We've captured a few and gotten it out of them. The younger they are, the more likely we can get something useful."

Clint grimaced. The files were about a training program in the former Soviet Union that took very young girls and trained them to be weapons. "It's not even their fault. They never signed up for it." He definitely didn't feel good about this upcoming mission. He wasn't a fan of straight out assassinations unless the person on the other side of his arrow was exceptionally deserving.

His handler understood the expressions on his face. "I know, Clint. But the only girls we've managed to bring in? They end up committing suicide, often taking agents with them. They've been programmed so deep, they don't have the capacity to be anything else. This is a mercy, if anything." Phil also hated how the op looked on paper, but he had been involved with a few of the other girls that had been brought in. It still gave him nightmares occasionally. There was truly nothing else they could do with these broken girls, especially this one.

A deep sigh, "Their handlers deserve this, not the girls." The archer had a strong moral code and while it was not conventional to many people, he still stuck to it resolutely.

"I agree, but we've never been able to get that far. This target has nearly as many kills as you, and she's not been operating nearly as long. She's a weapon, pure and simple. They point her at people and she doesn't ask why, she can't ask why, they've taken that from her." Coulson shook his head. "She is just death, incarnate." 

Clint couldn't argue with that. The target had killed many people, some of whom were truly good. She'd killed children, wives, friends of her targets. They suspect she may have burned a hospital to the ground to terminate a mark, killing every patient and staff member in the building at the same time. He knew Phil was right, that this was needed. It still made him uncomfortable though. He finally looked back up and nodded. "Alright."

"Are you sure?" Phil wasn't going to force his operative to take this mission. It was an ugly one and if he wasn't 100%, there was a good chance his mark would kill him.

"I'm sure," Clint confirmed. "What do we know?"

Getting back to business, Phil pulled up details of the mission. "We don't have any photos of her, but we know who her next target's supposed to be: Ruslan Mazur. He's a Ukranian official who has been working to de-escalate tensions between the two countries. Intel says he is a strong voice of cooperation in many of the former Soviet Bloc countries."

Clint took all this in, formulating a plan. From the intel they had, they would likely try to extort Masur first, and if that didn't work, terminate him. That meant she would need to infiltrate to get dirt on him, and then stay close if he didn't play ball. His gut instinct was pretty good, and he felt that his keen observational skills would ensure that in the end, he would be able to ID the target.

He and Phil talked more about the details, and then Clint stood to leave, going to head directly to a plane for Ukraine from the office. Phil stopped him; he cared about the archer like a son and knew that this was going to be harder than he would want it. "Be careful, Clint. She hasn't earned the name 'Black Widow' for nothing."

Clint smirked, "I got this, Phil. Don't worry."


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This has one of the biggest changes, started at the very end of last chapter. I am just changing her infiltration plan a little, because I like this one better!

Clint had boots on the ground for four days. He was still scouting, laying bugs and gathering intel while looking for the female assassin known to him only as the "Black Widow". The Ukranian peace leader that Clint was ostensibly protecting was of course unaware of the archer's presence.

By the end of the week, he was starting to get concerned that maybe the intel wasn't right and he was barking up the wrong tree. While he wasn't in constant contact with SHIELD, he checked in with his handler, Phil Coulson, to make sure there weren't problems. The best guess was that extortion wasn't working, extermination might be coming soon. 

The Ukrainian leader was being joined by his family for the weekend after a long week of meetings, which is when everything fell apart. Clint's watchful eye marked each family member as they got out: Mother, eldest son, youngest son, youngest daughter, oldest daughter and... a red-head that was familiar to him.

Hawkeye's stomach dropped. _She_ was the Black Widow? A colorful string of curse words in a variety of languages sped through his head. He could hear through the bugs the cover she was using: a friend of the oldest now helping watch the younger siblings. That worried him greatly. It meant that she was planning on taking out the whole family, if it came to that. 

For now, she was playing the part of a young university student, though he noted the way she was cataloging everything she saw as well. He examined her clothing carefully to determine where she was hiding her weapons. He had no idea what her timeline was, or what she had found already so he knew he had to move quickly to be ready to act at his first opportunity. He jumped from his vantage point and started pulling together a rough plan in his mind.

He listened to his bugs as he slid through one of the open casement windows in the basement, listening to the banal discussions between family members. He heard the Black Widow get introduced to Ruslan, she made no move then. Not surprising, he still had security around and with the sheer number of people, there was increased risk that someone would survive. There were better ways to get it done more cleanly.

Suddenly, he heard two girls giggling as they approached the basement stairs, talking about some current movie star heartthrob. He quickly ducked under them to hide, his arrow ready to fly if needed.

" _Hold on, my dad's cognac is back there. Once I get it for him, we can go watch something,_ " the oldest daughter said in Ukranian. She would delve into the cobwebs alone for the bottle. Clint was poised. If the Widow was going to make a first move, this was the time. 

Clint's eyes were trained tightly on the woman, frowning when he noticed, he almost thought regret in her eyes, and still she didn't make her move. This is when the slaughter should have started, he knew. If he were planning it, it's what he would do. The family was split up and by killing the girl down here, she could even hide it for a while. But she didn't move until suddenly the red head called out, " _I want to see the one that has the guy...you know, the one with the arms,_ " still in Ukranian of course.

She was stalling, she didn't want to go through with it. It was the only explanation he could come up with. That changed things. "You have a headache and you want to lay down," he hissed from his hiding spot under the stairs.

The Black Widow allowed a millisecond of surprise to show on her features before she hid it, not acknowledging the words in any way except to say to the other girl as they went up the steps, " _Actually, my head is starting to hurt, do you mind if I go lay down for a little while?_ "

Hawkeye was surprised she actually did it.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Spot the Firefly quotes in both this chapter and last :D Anyone who comments with all the quotes they recognize, gets a cookie. Or some other fabulous prize. Plus I want you to leave comments!

"Well, what are the odds?" the Black Widow said as she closed the door to the guest room she was staying in, seeing Hawkeye standing in the far corner. "Twice we have the same mark."

Hawkeye's face was closed, no amusement to match hers. He waited a beat, then spoke, "We don't."

The Widow nodded, her face going cold and blank as well. "Then what are you waiting for? I assume you had a shot in the basement."

"So did you." His voice was quiet and while his features were still blank, he allowed a hint of emotion in his voice, to communicate his understanding of her plan.

She scoffed, "And you interrupted me; it's only because I was curious about your presence that I delayed." The woman was a master liar, even to herself.

He allowed his expression to clearly telegraph his disbelief at her statement.

A roll of her eyes was her response. "Throwing some big stones Mr. Glass House. We are no different, you and I."

"Clinton."

"What?" Now she was confused, momentarily thinking perhaps he had switched languages and trying to place what was being used.

Patiently, "My name is Clinton or Clint. Call name is Hawkeye. And we're not alike. I get a choice."

"Are you suicidal?" A moment of honesty perhaps, she is really curious. "Why are you telling me your name?" And an annoyed huff. "I get a choice too."

Clint's grey-blue eyes held hers, "I know you didn't, you don't, not really. But I'd like to give you one." He had made a decision in the basement when he hadn't let his arrow fly. The woman he had met that night in the woods, the information he knew about her training, the fact that she hesitated, all those things added up to not matching the intelligence Coulton had given him. She was not a lost cause. She was not an irredeemable killer, no more than he had been when SHIELD recruited him.

"Come again?" She started a bit. This was not what she was expecting.

"Walk away. Come with me." To emphasize the point, he put the arrow that had been hanging loosely in his hand, ready to fire if needed, back into his quiver. She just stared at him with disbelief as he continued. "Admit it, you don't _really_ want to kill this family. You like the daughter. And you see yourself in the youngest girl."

"And if I don't?" The Black Widow glared at him, irrationally angry at him; very few people could read her so well, much less after such a short time.

Clint sighed, "Then I'll finish my job. I do my best to not kill innocents, and if you turn this down, you'll prove you aren't one."

A seductive smile came to her lips, "You think I'm an innocent?"

Pity shone in his eyes, "You have no idea how true that is." He knew she didn't think of herself as an innocent, nor did anyone else she had encountered. But he recognized she had been abused, formed, thrust into this without any outs and just because she had been made into weapon did not make it her fault. "I'm staking my life on the theory that you're a person, actual and whole." His voice dropped to a quiet intensity as he took a step closer to her. "You are more than a weapon."

She didn't even breathe for a few moments, the seductive expression gone. Her voice was quiet to match his, and her eyes showed the vulnerability that he had glimpsed earlier, "What if I'm not?"

"Don't you want to find out?" The corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk. He held out his hand.

She considered a few moments more - the longest moments perhaps in Clint's life - before she stepped forward to meet him and took his hand. "Natalia."


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally felt like this one was finished. I think there may be another after this too, not sure. I own nothing. I sort of wish I owned a dancing baby Groot though. (I tend to keep my original AN usually) A few changes/clean up here too, still no plot changes, just tightening things.

"Hawkeye, report!" Coulson's voice was annoyed on the other end of the line. Clint had gone silent for longer than he liked. "Is the mission complete? Are you ready for extraction?"

"I'm here sir," Clint replied calmly. "There were complications with the mission. The family is safe though, in no further danger from our mark." He wasn't ready yet to present everything to Coulson, much less Fury. He needed some time to be able to talk to Natalia and figure out the next steps.

"Complications?" Coulson repeated his words, waiting for an explanation.

"I'm sorry sir, I can't go into it at this time. I'm afraid this line isn't secure. I'm going to go off-grid and take care of business. I will re-connect per protocol. No more than 2 weeks." He disconnected the comm and grinned sheepishly over to Natalia who was sitting and watching him curiously.

"You did not have the authorization from your higher-ups to bring me in." A statement, not a question. The question was in her eyes though: they were screaming ' _why_ '.

Clint shrugged, "No, but when I was brought in, my handler didn't have authorization either. I'm following his lead. He will likely have figured out what I've done from that conversation."

Right now they were in a small safe house that Clint maintained himself, in Poland. He was still shocked that she had come with him. But so far, she hadn't tried to kill him, so that was a win.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Natalia looked at him expectantly. She was shocked herself, not believing that she had put so much faith in a single person, a man even. Part of her mind questioned whether any of this was actually happening. It was a fight within herself as well to not bolt at every sudden movement, or when she had too long to think about what she was doing.

The man who changed everything in her world sat down on the bed next to her. "We lay low. Learn to trust each other. I'll get some intel from you. I'll tell you about my organization, you make a decision whether to join."

"And if I don't join?" An eyebrow of hers arched dubiously at the thought.

Clint seemed confident though, "If you don't, I have a feeling you won't go back to doing exactly what you did before. And if you don't, I'll never have to come after you." He could see the potential in her and he knew that with the right direction, she could overcome her history and be a better person.

Natalia scoffed. "Your call name should be 'Tinkerbell'." He gave her a confused look, and she explained with a roll of her eyes, "'Think happy thoughts'."

He gave a genuine laugh, "Maybe it should be. But I usually have good instincts, and I've got a good feeling about you." He kept a smile on his face when he said it.

Natalia's expression didn't change from her vaguely cynical disdain, deciding to resume the original topic. "So we're stuck here?"

Clint nodded. "Yeah. I have a kid that will deliver groceries and food as we need it. But I don't want you out on the streets."

"And you don't want to leave me here alone while you go out," she finished what he was planning on leaving unsaid.

To his credit, he didn't try and deny it. "Right. So, here we'll stay."

The Black Widow surveyed the small flat. It was an efficiency-style with a kitchenette in one corner, one corner walled off with what she presumed was a bathroom and no other doors except the door they had entered through. There was one small bed, no TV, a bookcase with books in several languages and dresser next to that. It was very sparse. She presumed there was a safe or hidden cache somewhere, but she couldn't immediately identify where.

"One bed," she said, her voice unreadable at first.

Now it was Clint's turn to roll his eyes, "We've shared a sleeping space before. I won't touch you, and I'll send the kid out to get a mattress for you to sleep on."

A hesitation by Natalia, then moved so she could sit closer on the bed, her voice going lower, "What if I want you to touch me?" She slid a hand up his bicep. This was familiar territory for her at least.

Gently, Clint removed her hand from his arm. "No. That's not why I did this."

"You think I'm beautiful." Her hand now moved up to trace his jaw, which tensed and then he stood up to move away from her.

"It doesn't matter, Natalia. Please don't do this." He had a disappointed expression on his face.

Fully in her seductress mode now a little smirk on her face; she had men play hard to get before, but none had ever withstood her charms. "I doubt all of you agrees." She stood up and quickly reached her hand down the front of his pants.

He jumped away like she was on fire, "Jesus! Don't do that." He closed his eyes for a moment, looking pained, looking back at her. "You don't have to do that."

Natalia was irritated; not only was he rebuffing her verbally - she could feel that he wasn't hard and ready to take her the moment she convinced him it would be alright. She didn't interact with men without some form of sex or violence being involved, except for the previous interaction with him. She didn't say anything, feeling like a scolded child as he came back over to sit down on the bed again, his posture still tight.

"I am not going to have sex with you. Take it off the table. You are going to have to deal with me without being able to use that tool." His voice and expression was firm. His voice became more gentle finally, "You have been sexually abused since you were a young girl." He held up his hand to stop her protest before it started, "Let me finish. I've seen enough about what the Red Room did to you to know that you have no idea what it like for people who didn't grow up like that. And part of being able to bring you in, is this: learning how to work in an environment that isn't dependent on fear, subjugation, or abuse."

The Black Widow hated the pity in his words and tone. "So you just decided I'm going to be your project, to fix the broken Russian doll?" She nearly spat the words as she walked to the opposite side of the space. "I am not broken, I don't need your pity." She glared at him.

Clint's tone didn't change, he was expecting this sort of reaction from her. "We're all broken, Natalia. There's not an intact person who can do the job we do. But you will have my pity, whether you want it or not. You got handed a shitty deck. I wish you hadn't. I wish you had a happy childhood where you weren't expected to seduce and fuck men when you should have been still playing with dolls. Where you learned to ride a bike before you learned to kill. But you didn't. So now you need to figure out how to glue your pieces into something that is functional in the outside world."

He paused, running a hand through his cropped hair. "Do you know what happened to any of the other Red Room agents we managed to capture?" She didn't respond, so he continued, "They're all dead. All killed themselves, some took others with them. That's why there wasn't an option given to bring you in."

Natalia's expressions and emotions were completely turned off at this point, she was an impassive statue as she spoke. "Because they were loyal."

"No. Because they couldn't figure out how to live outside of that environment. They couldn't adjust to the possibility of having to deal with a life totally unlike what had been offered to them up to that point."

A scoff, "It's not that hard."

"Yes it is." Clint thought about his options and decided he had already crossed the point of no return and went all-in. "My parents died when I was little too. I lived in an orphanage until my brother and I ran away to join the circus, no fucking joke." A shake of his head at the cliche of it all. "I learned to use blades and to shoot and I had nothing else in my life beyond that. And I was abused. Differently than you, but still abuse. My mentors were not any more altruistic than any of yours, mine were more motivated by money. Eventually, during one of the heists I was used for, I killed my brother, not realizing he was part of the group manipulating me. I was in a bad place after that." He didn't bother trying to hide the pain that came with the story. "I gave up, becoming like you."

Natalia had listened in stony silence but now broke in, "And how is that?"

"I became a contract killer, and I didn't care about the ethics behind any of the hits I took," he said with a shrug.

Now she laughed bitterly, "Ethics? For a contract killer? That's rich."

"Yes, ethics. Of course ethics. They might not be the same as Mother Theresa's, but they allow me to sleep at night. I don't kill innocents now, at least not on purpose. I wish I could say I never made mistakes or had collateral damage, but I can't. I only kill people who are actively going to make the world a worse place by their continued survival."

"And that makes you better person than me?" Natalia rolled her eyes. "You still do what you're told, kill who you need to and do whatever it takes to get the job done."

Now he smirked, "Really, I do what I'm told? I have a _long_ list of supervisors who will disagree with that statement." Thinking of one in particular, he continued, "A man was sent to kill me, and he saw something in me. Something beyond the pain and anger that was fueling my kills. He brought me in instead."

"And now it's your turn? How touching." She clasped her hands and batted her eyelashes in an exaggerated movement, then made a gagging gesture.

"It is my turn. It may be stupid, but I think I know what Phil saw in me back then because I saw it in you. I don't think you're beyond redemption like they said. It may take a while to balance the books, but it is possible to come back from the darkness, and I think you have the strength to do it." Clint didn't look at her at first, but by the end of his speech, he held her gaze until finally she looked away.

Finally, she went over and sat in a chair, looking at him expectantly to continue. He smiled in response, "I'm going to debrief you here," He rolled his eyes in exasperation at her leer at the phrasing. "Afterwards, you will have a decision to make: Join us, or walk away." She looked at him with clear disbelief that he would allow her to leave. "If by the end, you don't want to join our operation, I'll let you go, free and clear, the only string attached will be to stay out of the Red Room."

"And if I don't?" she challenged him.

"Then I finish the job." His expression was calm, resigned. It would be the same as putting a rabid dog out of their misery.

Silence settled over the room as she considered his words and the truth of them. He found her once, could have killed her once; he could do it again she knew. And more, when he spoke, she felt something she hadn't felt since she was a very small girl: hope.

"We watched TV to learn English." she began.


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had another chapter in me. Who knew? We'll see if there's more after this. I will always keep this status as complete and will not leave cliffhangers so if no further inspiration strikes, I can leave the story "as is". *still feels guilt for unfinished stories for which she has lost the muse* As always, I own nothing, I make nothing from it, I'm just having some fun.

The nightmares started a little over a week into their time at the cramped, Polish safehouse. Natalia, having since gotten an air mattress to sleep on, went from being restless to letting out a whisper of a scream across the room, her breath too far gone to mount any louder sounds.

Clint woke immediately; they had become rather in-tune with each other during their time of confinement. Natalia had gone over much of her training and time in the Red Room. Too much of it sometimes, for Clint's taste. He wished he didn't know all that he knew now about the organization and what had been done to her. So when he heard her muted wail, it didn't come entirely as a surprise.

He wasn't a therapist by any means, but he had survived his own terrible situations and he knew that despite some coping mechanisms being dysfunctional, they were still how people coped. If they didn't figure out a new way to cope with the pain or trauma, it could actually make it worse. He had also been forced to go through a lot of therapy himself by SHIELD before they would allow him out on missions, which at least gave him some ideas on how to handle a damage psyche.

He went to her side, careful not to touch her; he didn't know what exactly her nightmares were, but he was willing to bet they involved violence in some way. "Natalia, you're in Poland, you're safe. You're in a room with Clint Barton." His voice was soft and soothing as he went over basic facts that were detailed enough to perhaps help convince her mind that it hadn't invented them itself.

Breathing hard, clutching the blanket in her fists, Natalia didn't speak at first. She had stopped the sound coming from her mouth, worked hard at controlling her breathing as she glared at Clint.

He met her eyes, apology in them. "We went too far, I'm sorry." While the main goal of their sequestration in Poland was to ensure that she was safe to be around other agents, too much without trained and qualified mental health professionals was not the best idea. She could still break badly.

The woman finally had composed herself enough to speak, "No. I need to deal with this."

"There are people at SHIELD that can help you deal with your past. People who are better at it than I am," Clint explained apologetically.

"They've never gone through what we have though. They haven't truly murdered people. Murdered people and enjoyed it." Her voice was tight, straining to stay even.

His eyes went to her hand, then to his own, asking permission to touch her before he did; she gave a small nod in return. He took her hand, holding it tightly, "No, they haven't. But sometimes telling someone like that what happened and having them not judge you for it can be healing too."

A bitter laugh, "They should judge me for it. The hospital I burned. Some people tried to throw infants to safety." She had been so deeply into the persona she had to be for the Red Room, she hadn't, couldn't think about the details of what she had done, before this.

Talking with Clint had made her remember the period in her life that had been before training, when she had parents who loved her. When she had been taught right from wrong and had been punished for doing the wrong thing, instead of vice-versa. That person was still inside her, she had just kept her very well caged. If she hadn't, she would have killed herself long ago with all she had endured. But now she had to let that person back out if she wanted to survive outside of the Red Room.

He didn't try and say it wasn't her fault, because that wouldn't change anything, and in the end, she had done the deed and would have to live with it. "I'm sorry, Natalia." Sorry that she had to do it back then, sorry she had to remember it so clearly, sorry that he was making her feel guilt again, when she had so neatly turned that emotion off so long ago.

She squeezed his hand in response. "I'm going to have to get through this. Ride it out and get the poison out." A pause as she thought about her next words, "I want to feel this pain. I need to."

He nodded, understanding better than most. "That doesn't mean you have to go through it alone."

She seemed dubious, looking up at the moon, thinking about his words. "Can you do me a favor though, Clint?" He nodded and waited for her to continue. "Can you please stop calling me Natalia?"

He nodded cautiously, not sure where she was going with this. "Ok, what would you like me to call you?"

Hesitantly, she says, "I was Natasha the day we met." It was sentimental perhaps, but it was the first name that she thought of. He thought that woman was worth saving. After a beat, almost in explanation, "I hate hearing you say Natalia. It's what the Red Room calls me." She wandered verbally, still not good with any sort of emotional discussion. "Every time I hear that name, I hear _them._ I feel _them_."

He cut her off as she continued struggling to find how to say what she wanted. "I understand. Natasha." He squeezed her hand one more time before letting it go. "Try and get some more sleep, ok?" Internally he was thinking that maybe she was safe enough to be presented to SHIELD.

Natasha looked at him hesitantly, knowing her record with physical contact and the man in front of her wasn't great. "Would you mind staying over here with me?" Before he could answer, she quickly amended, "Like when we met. Just be there." She wouldn't look at him when she asked, having already turned away.

Clint didn't let the worry show on his face, but this vulnerability that she was showing was either a great act or real. Either one could mean big trouble. If it was fake, she was leading him on and meant to kill him. If it was real – all the more concerning. The Black Widow didn't show vulnerability like this. If she was truly starting to come out of the persona and character she played for the Red Room, she might not be able to live with the guilt and try and kill them both.

These thoughts flashed through his head in an instant and he spoke while barely missing a beat, "Of course." He slid onto the mattress behind her, placing his arms around her, being careful where his hands rested. He didn't want to give her mixed signals about that.

He didn't sleep while he held her, still facing away from him. He could feel the taut nature of her muscles and the shudders from the tears. And he could feel when the tears finally stopped and she started to relax, finally drifting off to sleep. When she would start to whimper or twitch, he would whisper in her ear that she was safe in Poland, with him.

At least there were no more screams that night.


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Had a terrible time with this one. Many different versions. Some of them were terrible. Hopefully this is not terrible (and I would appreciate a review or two telling me what you think) and moves the story along.

When Natasha woke up the next morning, she saw Clint sitting next to her in her bed, one hand on her shoulder, the other holding a book so he could read. He felt her movement and nodded, "Morning." He motioned to the computer that was on the table, "You can work on your written intel, I'm going to grab some sleep."

"Thank you," she said simply, getting up to perform the morning ritual she had developed in her time in the safehouse. She watched as Clint returned to his bed and dropped off to sleep without hesitation, wondering if he had nightmares about things he did.

Returning to her routine, she did a basic floor workout, thankful that the archer was asleep so she could try and process what she was feeling with a modicum of privacy. The nightmares had startled her. She couldn't remember dreaming before this, and the first nightmare seemed to have opened the floodgates. Now every time she closed her eyes, some horrible scene assaulted her, frequently one of her own creation.

Part of her wanted to curl up into a ball, or slit her wrists, or just do anything that would allow her to escape from having to deal with her past. Sometimes the urge was stronger than she would ever admit and she started cataloging the ways she could kill herself, her hands moving toward whatever object without thinking.

Then she would fill with anger; she hadn't asked for the life she was given and it felt like suicide was letting the Red Room win. That if they couldn't have her, no one would. They had taken so much from her, and she needed to beat them at something. She didn't feel like this before she met Clint, clearly it was all his fault.

Natasha resented Clint, resented him for making her worry about right and wrong instead of just what was assigned. Frustration overwhelmed her finally and she let out an angry cry.

Clint was awake immediately, despite having slept through the noise of her workout. "What is it, Natasha?"

"How in the hell am I supposed to live like this, with what I have done?" She paced around the room. "I don't want to feel this!" She glared at Clint accusingly.

Clint watched her, nonplussed. "But unfortunately, you have to. What's been done can't be undone."

She gave him an incredulous look. "You think that is going to make me feel any better about this situation?"

"No. And it's not supposed to. I can't make you feel better about this. Part of this process is that you are supposed to start _feeling_ again." He stepped close to her. "I remember those days, killing without thought and feeling, numb to everything. And I imagine it's the only way you survived what has happened to you, you shut things down. But to be a person, a real person, you have to start feeling again, including feeling guilt, horror, despair, and pain."

"What if I don't want to feel those things? What if I would rather be numb, be anything, rather than feel this pain?" She looked at him with the kind of emptiness he knew all too well. 

Clint gave her an appraising look, "You've taken a lot of pain before and made it through. Pain can be a gift, it can make us sharp. But if you want to end it, then make it quick so I don't have to sit around this room any longer and don't have to face disciplinary proceedings when I return." Seemingly from nowhere, he pulled a gun out, getting up smoothly to hand it to her. He was taking a big risk. He wasn't sure how to handle the situation but he suspected that a 'tough love' approach might work better for her. He also suspected her will to live was greater than she thought.

She took the gun, looking at it with contemplation. She couldn't even put it to her head; the thought of dying after all she had been through was impossible. Natasha angrily emptied the chamber of the gun, throwing the bullet at the infuriating person with her, acknowledging she couldn't commit suicide.

He calmly caught the bullet. "You could do good things, Natasha. Balance the books, if you will." The gun went back into hiding as he stepped closer. "You can't change the past. But you were never the one who did those things. That was always them using you. Hell, you're better than me when I started. My past isn't nearly so horrific, but I know the kinds of things you see when you close your eyes because I see them too sometimes."

"I don't even know what to feel," she responded dully. Strip away her training and programming, what did that leave her? Nowhere.

The archer sat down, elbows on knees, "That's ok too. Walking out of here, it's a clean slate."

"The slate is never clean, even you can't be so naive to think it can be."

The truth was in his eyes: no, it could never be cleaned, it would always be stained with the blood of those they had killed. "Maybe not to the world, but to me, this can be day one." A cheeky smile came to his features and he got up suddenly and returned with a 1 _zloty_ coin. He flipped it over to her, she caught it easily.

"Your one day coin." She frowned, not understanding what he said. Patiently, he continued, "We have a thing in America to stop drinking, Alcoholics Anonymous. When you stop drinking, they give you a token to remind you why you stopped."

"And so this is...Assassins Anonymous?" Somehow a smile crept onto her features.

He made an equivocal gesture with a grin. "Well, unless you quit the business entirely, you're still probably going to kill people. But, you'll have a say in it, you'll be able to decide whether sleeping at night will be easier or harder by going on a mission." He met her eyes. "I've never been forced to go on a mission I've not been 100% about. In this line of work, they know it has to happen that way."

"So you were 100% about taking me out." She watched him for signs of dishonesty.

"I was." It was true, but he bowed his head slightly, almost in apology. "I was wrong though. And I made my own mind up when the time came."

Oddly, she is reassured by his admission that he was ready to kill her. "And the nightmares?"

Now Clint looked more uncomfortable. "I tend to get mine more when I'm not working, not so focused. I use sleeping pills when it is too bad, but usually just alcohol and toughing it out."

" _за сбычу мечт"_ Natasha muttered to herself as she pocketed the coin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: According to Dr. Google, what Nat says at the end is a russian toast that is a play on words about all your dreams coming true.


	8. VIII

"Do you want the good news or the great news?" Clint Barton began when he finally contacted Phil Coulson for the first time in weeks.

"What did you do, Clint?" Phil said suspiciously, sounding much like Bill Murray from Ghostbusters in that moment.

Undaunted, Clint continued, "The good news is that Mazur is safe and the threat to him has been eliminated."

"And the 'great' news?" Phil asked dryly.

"I have acquired a new asset for SHIELD!" Clint exclaimed with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm.

Clint could almost hear Phil rubbing his forehead in consternation. "You didn't, please tell me you didn't."

Clint's tone dropped to a more serious level, "It isn't what we thought, Phil. _She's_ not what we thought."

"And how exactly do you know that, Clint? You think a week or two of watching her or whatever the hell you've been doing qualifies you to say that?!" Yup, definitely angry.

"Living with her, debriefing her. Giving her more chances to escape or kill me than I can count. Phil, you read the same files as I did and maybe all the other girls were nothing but weapons, but Natasha..." Clint searched for how to say it. "You found me when I was in a very dark place. You gave me an option I didn't deserve because you saw something in me. Well, now it's my turn."

Phil Coulson sighed, "Fury is going to lose his mind." He couldn't exactly fault the archer for doing the same thing that he himself had done, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

* * *

Losing his mind would be putting it mildly. "What the fuck were you thinking, Barton?" Fury demanded. They were standing off to the side in an airport hanger as Natasha was being led away to a cell in handcuffs. Nick Fury was towering over Clint, yelling angrily.

Clint's eyes slipped over to Natasha for a moment during the browbeating to make sure she was doing ok. They made eye contact and he gave a tiny nod to her that he was going to be ok with what he was facing, if she was going to be able to make it through her own trial. The smallest quirk of the side of her mouth let him know she was fine; they had discussed and gone over what she could expect upon their return and so far, it was going according to plan.

Fury noted the quick flick of Clint's eyes to Natasha and growled lowly, "If all of this is because you are fucking her, I will have your head on a plate."

Clint was more than a little relieved that Natasha hadn't heard that particular statement. He didn't want her to think what he had done had been about anything but who she was as a person, not whether he wanted to get into her pants.

Calmly, refusing to rise to his superior officer's level of anger he said, "No sir. She is a potential asset to this organization and she is seeking asylum from the abusive regime she was unwillingly forced to be part of."

Fury turned to glare at Coulson, "This is _your_ fault, you know." With that he stalked away.

"It really sorta is," Clint said with a smirk.

"Shut up, Hawkeye. If this goes badly, it will be on your head," Phil said with irritation.

Barton looked back at the doorway where the Black Widow had been taken and thought to himself, _"Worse, if this goes badly, it will be on my conscience."_ He sighed and headed to the door where they would be interrogating Natasha.


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Good news: I am alive and kicking. Bad news: My tablet with all my works in progress is not. I lost 3+ partial chapters/stories. Teach me to save locally instead of to the cloud. Good news: A2 comes out Thursday. Bad news: I have been spoiled about the ships and I'm feeling pouty. Come on, Joss. Would it have killed you to allow me to have this? You took away Buffy and Angel. You destroyed Oz and Willow. Let's not even get started on Mal and Inara. *grumps*
> 
> Anyway, I'm trying to work through my bitterness through fanfic. That's healthy, right?

The Black Widow sat alone in her interrogation room, waiting for a SHIELD agent to either get over his fear of her or stop trying to psych her out. She wasn't uneasy with her wait – just bored. Eventually, a strong-jawed man came into the room and sat across from her, watching her silently.

' _Amateurs,'_ she thought, if they thought this kid's stuff would work with her. She just stared back, a pleasantly neutral expression on her face.

The man broke first. "So what do you want to tell us?"

She smirked. "You? Nothing. The man with the eyepatch. That's who I want to talk to." No need to sit there with tweedle-dum for any longer than necessary.

"Too bad. I'm who you get. You are not exactly in a position to be demanding things." Tweedle stared at her with his best menacing glare.

Unfortunately for him, she had experienced much worse. "Fine. Then kill me." In some ways, she had to admit it would be a relief. It's the only retirement she ever expected.

His bluff called, he sat back and clenched his jaw. She saw his eyes deviate slightly, which cued her to the fact he was getting instructions through the earpiece that she was sure was there, even though she couldn't see it.

A few more moment passed and Nick Fury walked in the room. He nodded to Tweedle who promptly left the room. For a moment, Natasha wasn't entirely sure whether this had been an act for her benefit, to make her feel more in control. In the end, it didn't matter. She had come this far, she might as well go the distance.

"Talk." Fury was straight and to the point, she'd give him that.

"I want this to not be recorded or observed," she countered immediately.

"I want you to be in a body bag, so I guess we're both not getting things we wanted today. At least not yet." Fury gave her a friendly, yet menacing smile.

' _Please Natasha.'_ For some reason, she could hear Clint's admonishment to cooperate. It bothered her that he had insinuated himself into her psyche so quickly. "What I will tell you, you can tell who needs to know, you can write out whatever you want, but most of my history is sensitive. There is a lot I can't tell without exposing myself."

"And I care about that, why?"

"Because I will be completely open and honest with you, one on one, telling you everything I know without filter, otherwise I'll edit and you might lose important information." Natasha knew that the more people that knew the details of what happened to her, not only the more damage that could be done to her, but the more pitying looks she would get.

Fury considered her words, in light of what he knew about the program in Russia to begin with; it probably was bad enough that even this killer didn't want everyone to know about it. And if he knew, he would have leverage over her. He understood the offer she was making.

"Would you trust me, even if I said I'd take the deal? That the room was clean and without observers?"

A small smile. "Of course not. But if Barton checked a room over and said it was clean, I'd believe him."

Fury's eyes narrowed. "What do you have on Barton? Are you two fucking?"

A small muscle near her ear twitched. "Nothing. He trusted me when he had no good reason to do so. He's never even looked at me in a sexual way." Fury seemed incredulous at that and gave her a questioning look. "I don't know. Maybe I'm not his type. But I would trust him to look for bugs."

"Fine. But I get the final call about what is intelligence and what is just your personal history and what goes in the file."

She hesitated just slightly, but finally nodded. "Agreed."

* * *

After Hawkeye cleared a conference room of all monitoring devices, he and Phil went to sit and do their own formal debrief. His eyes cast back toward the room where Natasha and Nick were, the concern evident on his face.

"Nick won't just kill her," Coulson said while sipping his coffee. "Though I still don't understand why you care so much."

"How did you feel when I was being interrogated after you brought me in?" Hawkeye countered.

Phil shook his head. "Touché." He took another long sip from his cup. "Do you really think she wants out? That she'll survive the aftermath?"

The archer watched the cream swirl in his coffee. "I think she could. She got very close to ending it while we were holed up, but I think the person underneath the web is stronger than anyone could imagine."

"Really though, did you sleep with her? You know it will come out and there will be hell to pay."

Clint fairly growled the next sentence. "When you hear even a portion of what she's been through, you'll understand. She tried throwing herself at me, for _payment_ ," he said in disgust.

Phil winced. Like Hawkeye, he figured it was probably one of the most used currencies she had in her life, unfortunately. "Alright. So it is purely altruistic."

"Pretty much. I'm a saint." Clint's expression was absolutely deadpan.

Phil sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Start at the top."

* * *

Hawkeye's debrief was ended far before Natasha's. He paced impatiently around the corridors around the conference room that the Widow and Fury were holed up in. He was just as curious as the others who tried to find excuses to go by to see if they could eavesdrop, but he respected her desire for privacy in the matter. He had a feeling that there would be some very ugly things she was telling Fury.

Eventually, the door opened. Never before and likely never again had he ever seen Fury look so bleak, so…shaken. Fury rearranged his features into a scowl when he saw Barton, jerking his head back behind him. "Go. She's in. But she's on your watch and your conscience. Don't make me regret this, Hawkeye."

Relief flooded the sniper and he quickly went into the room. Natasha looked wan and exhausted. Telling her story clearly took a toll on her. She didn't even try to hide it – that perhaps showed more than anything that she trusted the man who brought her in. "We'll grab food on our way to quarters and then we can get some decent sleep."

"You and I both know that decent nights sleep are hard to come by." Just a ghost of a smirk.

"Well, we'll have to do the best we can then." He held out a hand to her, which she took. He led her out of the interrogation room and into her new life at SHIELD.


	10. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I'm slowly moving things over to ao3, but while I was reading through stuff, this extra interlude came to me of what Natasha's childhood might have been like. Warnings for abuse of children, including sexual, and generally disturbing content. My mind is a little dark I guess because I was thinking about her past and thinking of the best ways to create sociopathic girls.

Natalia Romanova and Nick Fury sat down at a conference room table, sizing the other up. Natasha noted that she had been given a comfortable chair by Clint when he cleared the room. He wasn't setting up any of the stupid interrogation tactics like giving her a smaller, uncomfortable chair. It pleased her because first, she knew he was better than that, and second, she suspected he actually wanted her to have a comfortable chair for this discussion. A little flame of warmth in her chest flared, but she didn't give any outward signs, of course.

"Alright, if you're going to talk in private, I'm listening." Fury went straight to the point and definitely was not enamored with just hearing himself talk. He wanted to hear Natalia's story.

* * *

"I have some memories of my parents. Or I think I do. Honestly, at this point, some of my background is a mystery to me too, and has been heavily manipulated. But I think I remember them." She paused for a moment while she tried to conjure an image or feeling in her mind to try and be sure of something true, then pushed it aside, because it really didn't matter for this story.

"My parents died when I was three. Or they were killed. Or they sold me. Or I was kidnapped." A shrug of her shoulders. "I came into the possession of the Russian government, though I didn't know it at that time." Her face darkens just slightly in foreshadowing. "I was one of many girls. We were kept in cages, like dogs." Her lips raised in a smirk. "English could be counted as a native language for me. We had TVs that were always on, showing us different movies, TV shows, things that I later learned would be important for me to know to be able to blend better. Pop culture." It was never her strongest suit, but seeming normal was important, which meant knowing who famous movie stars were and what kind of music and fashion were popular.

"We would be taken out of the cages to fuck different men. That probably started when I was five or six? We never kept great track of our ages. You really started to look forward to it, because you also usually got better food and the more they liked you, the better you were treated and the more they came back. All things considered, it is a pretty small price to pay for good food and a night in a comfortable bed. Later, would get taken out for fighting." 

Her face was impassive as she continued to narrate the horror that was her childhood. "When they started, the fights were just playground fighting or wrestling, and there would be no consequences for winning or losing, we would be taken back to our cages after. Maybe an extra piece of fruit if they like watching you." A happy smile crosses her face momentarily as she remembers. "I got a lot of fruit."

"Anyway, I don't know how many girls they started with, but eventually, some of the girls, their minds would break too much. I was seven I think when it first happened, a girl couldn't seem to stop screaming." Natasha gave a wry, bitter smile. "I guess it is impressive, it took that long to fully drive her to madness. Or perhaps there were others they quietly put down? Possibly. Anyway this time, they told both of the girls that were fighting that only one of them could leave the fight.

"It was surprisingly difficult to do, to kill other girls you had seen before and knew had no other choice." Natasha frowned at the memory; to her current self, it would be easy. At the same time, Nick Fury flinched when she seemed to be chiding herself for having difficulty killing other children who were just as trapped and the fact that she thought it should have been easy in the first place spoke a volume of information about her emotional capabilities.

"At first they didn't. But eventually, with enough enticement, they did." Natasha didn't elaborate on what "enticement" used, and for that, Fury was immeasurably grateful. "And when Lila eventually won, she was given extra food and time out of the cage. Only one "fight" was truly terrible. Both girls were stubborn and wouldn't fight. They eventually collapsed from dehydration, and all of the girls were made to watch as they waited to see who would die first. They never killed a girl that I saw: they always made us kill each other."

Fury noted that she narrated it like she wasn't present or participatory. He wondered how many girls she killed, and whether she was a spectator or the participant in the failed hunger strike. He doubted he would ever believe her, no matter what her answer was.

"When there were about 15 of us left, we were 'rescued'." She couldn't help but laugh coldly at the thought. "Of course, it was just part of the psychological conditioning in actuality. They said they were with the government, they were rescuing us from being kidnapped, took us to an isolated campus with a beautiful old house that was large enough for all the girls. We were told we had to be kept from people until we were evaluated and treated for our time in captivity because we were too dangerous and broken to be with normal people, and the government had dedicated a beautiful farm campus for our healing."

Natasha chuckled and looked directly at Nick. "Our healing! God, we were stupid little girls." He visibly recoiled, both at her disgust at herself for thinking rescue was possible and the new layer in psychological torture she had undergone. She returned to her eyes not quite meeting his, going back into her memory.

"After a period of evaluation, we were each brought into an office told that they were very sorry, but we were too violent and sexualized to be allowed out into the general population ever, and that no one from our families wanted to see us ever again, because they were too ashamed of what we had done and had done to us, so custody was given to the state. And they would play that they were sorry for all this, but they were left with no choice but execution. Or…well, they could try and turn the horrible things done to us into something good for the Motherland. I mean, they didn't put it quite that nicely, but you get the sentiment." 

"That's when training really began, when we purposefully started learning spycraft, better fighting techniques, arms, interrogation and torture. It started with ballet, as part of physical therapy from living in cages. Additionally, ballet ensures that all the muscle you build is long, not compact. They didn't want their girls being visibly strong. So no more cages, but they would cuff us to our beds at night. Plus we had no idea where we were, or where civilization was."  She shakes her head to get back on track.

"We were trained as the ultimate _kompromats_. Elegant killers, no sexual or moral inhibitions about any task. I performed my first honeypot mission when I was eleven. Successful, of course." Nick definitely heard pride in her voice with that pronouncement.

"Of course." He had stopped hiding his expressions not long after the story began. He felt that she had designed the interaction as a sort of test, she wanted to see his real reaction to what she was saying was. "And you haven't ever left the Red Room before."

"No. They really were ingenious in the methods of indoctrination, working with children. We were convinced that we were beyond broken, beyond all hope and that this was the only way to find any sort of life. We were worth nothing except as tools of the state." Nick's throat dried a bit as she spoke, thinking of the other girls still there and the ones that SHIELD had captured who had committed suicide. It made more sense suddenly. "When you officially 'graduate' from the program, they strap you down, burn away your uterine lining so we would never have to deal with periods or worse, pregnancy. Obviously, none of us could ever be fit to raise a child.

"After graduation, you were given a bit more freedom for missions. Five girls from my group made it to the end alive. I was the favored one for wet work. They liked my style, and men like my body, which made my job easier, even fun at times."

"What changed?" Fury steepled his fingers. This was a crucial part. He needed to believe why and how she came to be in this office.

A twitch of her eyebrow. "Barton. It was maybe two years ago now I think? I was working a long term target. He didn't know who I was. He eventually realized I was intelligence as well." She rolled her eyes in fond annoyance. "A little slowly, in my opinion. But he… he helped me." She didn't struggle or stumble in telling the horrific details of her childhood, but she had difficulty with the kindness he showed her. "It was just that, we were caught in a storm and ended up in the same shelter." Her fingers fidgeted a little.

"Yes, I read the report."

"He didn't act like…like he was supposed to. He trusted me! He didn't even…" Now she looked angry and frustrated and unsettled. "He wasn't right and that made me question things and look into others…" She closed her eyes tightly. "But, it didn't even matter, because they still made us into monsters. No matter who did it." Her eyes opened again. "He didn't act like a monster, and he doesn't treat me as one either."

Natasha met Fury's eyes. "He just has this annoying way of wearing you down!" Fury resisted chuckling, but did smile at the angry pronouncement from the woman in front of him. Her voice dropped its anger, now more in defeat. "He understands." Finally, a shrug of her shoulders. "It is better than the Red Room." And that was the truth at the bottom of it all. Barton opened her eyes to just how terrible the Red Room was, so anything would be better.

Nick Fury didn't say anything for a few beats, waiting for her to look back up at him. "It is, I swear to you." He wanted to touch her hand, but also recognized that it would not be appropriate or might be taken the wrong way, so held back. He meant the words too. His devotion to SHIELD and its principles gave him security in knowing that they were better than that, and maybe there was a chance for this woman.

The most important part of the debriefing was over – they had established a trust. They continued over her history in excruciating detail until the bleak nature and exhaustion over her past caused Fury to call it to a close.

"I'm not going to mandate therapy or psychological treatment." They had used such fronts to manipulate her as a child, and he felt requiring it would be counterproductive. "But if you want it, SHIELD will pay for it, wherever you want to go, whoever you want to see." Maybe she would trust enough eventually to use the SHIELD psych team, which was probably the best equipped, but he felt he needed to firmly establish the differences between SHIELD and the Red Room for her.

"And…Barton is going to be your shadow." A time frame wasn't mentioned but Natasha was sure it was open-ended, that he would be her handler until they trusted her enough to hand to someone else's care. "Don't let him down." With that, he stood and motioned for her to follow him out of the room. He needed to drink if he was going to be able to write a report on this, and possibly even to be able to sleep that night.


	11. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This is another one of my chapters that I wrote and rewrote, and rewrote again. I knew I wanted to incorporate Clint's family and how that played into things between Clint and Natasha, and I will fully admit I used a lot of personal experience in how I view/justify their actions/reactions in this head-cannon. How Natasha dealt with it was actually more difficult for me, and the reason for quite so many rewrites.
> 
> Hopefully people enjoy it. I may be actually seeing a true end to this somewhere soonish.

The transition from target to teammate wasn't an easy one for Natasha. SHIELD agents were understandably hesitant about her, and the feeling was mutual. A basic level of trust was necessary to be able to effectively function and she lacked that with everyone. Well, everyone except Clint. She supposed that was really the only person she needed to trust her anyway.

Clint stayed with her in her new quarters. This did not help the rumors that abounded: Clint had only spared Natasha to be some sort of sex toy. She didn't much care about the rumors – much worse things had been said about her, and she would have slept with Clint if it had been the price. He typically ignored it, unless it came from Coulson or Fury, which earned them a sharp glare, but no other admonishments.

She figured he stayed to make sure she didn't either make a run for it, or blow up the base when he was gone. She was his responsibility and he was going to babysit her until they had more trust established.

He actually stayed because he was worried she would wake up at night and not know where she was or have a nightmare. He cared about her. Clint knew his feelings weren't entirely chaste, but there were so many barriers and boundaries that he could not, would not cross. If not for his own reasons, for Natasha's protection as well. He didn't know some of the more graphic details, but he knew enough, and sometimes too much. So, he carefully kept his behavior and thoughts as platonic as possible. They were going to be partners, which meant a close relationship and that was going to be enough; it had to be enough.

* * *

One night after her acceptance into SHIELD, after a particularly bad nightmare, Clint watched as she tossed and turned trying to get back to sleep. He noted that she finally only settled down when she laid on her left side with her right arm up, resting on the wall in what seemed to be a very awkward angle. She didn't move again for the remainder of the night. When she woke up there was momentary fear and dread in her expression and quickly brought her arm back down, Clint giving her a questioning look but not asking for anything then.

After they had eaten and done an initial workout for the morning, Natasha turned to him and abruptly said, "There was always a bar above our bed that we were handcuffed to at night."

Clint blinked at the admission. "What?"

"You gave me a look last night about how I slept." Her tone was annoyed and mildly defensive.

"You're right. I did. I was curious." He frowned though, processing the words she had said. "So that's your comfort position." He said it sadly, with empathy but not pity, thankfully. He had his own position that he tended to revert to when nightmares came.

He cleared his throat. "I have hearing loss in my right ear." Natasha actually was startled to hear it. "It's not enough to disqualify me now, but when I was a kid, I was usually deaf in that ear. My dad would box my ear to wake me up if he was pissed." Clint shrugged at her frown. "I learned to sleep on my left side to protect my good ear. And keep a hand over my right to maybe block a hit in the dark."

Natasha didn't reply with anything more than a nod. They both went back to their tasks, neither comfortable with the discussion. She knew he had shared to balance out what she had told him, so she wouldn't feel exposed. She was thankful for that.

That night she realized he installed a hook with a soft loop of fabric above her bed. When she looked back over at him, he shrugged. If it made it easier to sleep, he wanted to facilitate that and her being as comfortable as possible while doing it. He wasn't about to judge her coping mechanisms.

* * *

"Do you actually ever sleep?" Natasha frowned at Clint one night when she woke up from a particularly painful nightmare. As always, he was there and awake beside her to speak soft words. She was going through the SHIELD-mandated therapy and psychological testing, and she was actually trying to participate so she could make it through this transition.

A sad smile from the man beside her. "Yeah, enough."

She remembered him telling her that he had more nightmares when he wasn't on assignment. "What helps yours?" She was honestly curious. It wasn't heartening to think that these were going to be a more permanent part of her life.

"Exhaustion. Focus on a mission. Being somewhere I feel safe." He turned his head to look at her in the darkness. "Certain things bring them back to the surface and make it harder. Watching you go through this reminds me a lot of when I did." It wasn't accusation or blame, but explanation.

"I'm sorry." He nodded in response to her words, knowing she was trying to express sympathy for the fact he had to relive his recruitment.

He debated whether to speak again, unsure if he was pushing too hard. "They've changed a bit for you, though." She didn't talk in her sleep, but he was getting to know her body language even better with time, and there seemed to be more actual fear from the nightmares over the last few days. When she dreamt of things she'd done, she awoke almost angry. Those were the nights that she tended to use her arm loop to get back to sleep, to revert to the person who wasn't bothered by those acts. When the others came, she would never put her arm up.

"It's so wonderful that my subconscious mind has so many vivid options to choose from." Natasha's voice wasn't annoyed, just resigned. "Tonight was about when I was little." She didn't continue, he didn't push. A pause, thinking back on earlier words. "You said that when you felt really safe, you didn't have as many nightmares. Do you get to that level of safety often?" Her voice was tinged with hope.

For some reason, a guilty look flashed across Clint's face, before he hid his emotions again. "Not as much as I should," he said very softly. Tipping his head back and cracking his neck before saying anything else, clearly debating how much to say to the woman next to him. "I have a family."

The admission shocked Natasha more than probably anything else he could have said. She knew enough about his history that his parents and brother were dead. "You mean..." She honestly struggled to wrap her mind around what he was saying. Not just because it was unbelievable, but because although she would never admit it, it caused a sharp pain in her chest.

"No-one except Fury, Coulson and now you know. It _has_ to stay that way." He was also feeling an uncomfortable pain, one he would be just as unlikely to admit.

"Why are you telling me?" she whispered. It was insane to think about. There was no benefit to it. It showed a level of trust that she wasn't sure was well-placed. Some horrible ideas and thoughts had flitted through her mind when he first spoke.

A long pause as he considered the question. "We're partners now." His eyes went down to her hand to ask permission to touch it. She twitched a pinky in his direction to grant it.

"So is she." That was the closest she would ever come to admitting jealousy. But partnership in both of these situations required a level of commitment that could often be in conflict with each other.

Clint looked away. "It's not that easy." His face settled into a deep frown. "We met before, when I was a kid. We both were escaping issues." He sighed. "It's definitely not a normal marriage."

"You're actually married?" This was so surreal to Natasha.

"It was important to her before our son was born." His voice was quiet and held a hint of pain. Natasha's hand pulled out from under his.

Natasha sucked in a breath. Son. Clint had a son. She didn't say anything, not trusting her voice. She wanted to be unaffected by all this disclosure. She wanted for it to not matter to her or hurt this much. But it hurt more than she could ever explain. She had reconciled what had been done to her, and what her career was, meant that she would never have a family and though she knew that Clint hadn't been raised in the same environment, she figured that assassins and family didn't mix, no matter the upbringing.

"I have a daughter too." In for a penny, in for a pound. He needed to get this all out. He wasn't naïve enough to claim he didn't feel the chemistry between them, to know that they were closer than normal, that there wasn't a draw between them. He wouldn't act on it, but if he was honest, that was as much because of Natasha as his wife. "They are five and three."

She nodded numbly. "What's her name?" Her voice was still very soft, hiding the emotion there.

"Laura." He wanted to explain so much to Natasha, about how it happened and what their relationship was, truthfully. But he knew that in this moment it wouldn't make this conversation any easier. Hopefully, he would be able to explain to her later, if they were not breaking some part of the connection they had irrevocably right now.

Slow breath in and out. She wanted to be angry for him not telling her sooner, but she also was shocked he told her at all. "I need to process this," she finally said.

He understood what that meant - she didn't want him next to her right now. He was not providing comfort or help. He stood up, knowing he made a huge gamble by trusting her with this information, knowing to her it would feel like a betrayal. Part of him wanted to stay and watch to make sure she didn't go after them, but he knew that was pointless. If she wanted them dead, no amount of watching would change that and he would damage their already weakened trust by insinuating it.

"Good night, Natasha." Clint couldn't look at her, his own feelings too chaotic to deal with. He needed to process too apparently.

"Good night, Clint."

He hoped like hell that it wasn't as final as it seemed in that moment.

* * *

They avoided each other the next day, both uncomfortable with the feelings that had been stirred by the situation. Clint did go to Coulson's office to let him know.

"You know we have lawyers that could have helped you with this." Phil's annoyed response seemed like a non-sequitur.

"Helped with what?" Clint tried to figure out Coulson's angle.

"Divorce would not have been difficult to arrange, we could have set her up. But to do this and put your kids at risk?" Phil shook his head, disappointment and disgust in his expression.

"I don't want her dead!" Clint exclaimed angrily. Phil arched a brow incredulously at him. "I know you don't yet, but I trust Natasha. She's not going to hurt them."

"Pretty big throw of the dice though, isn't it?"

"It was something I know would have come out to her eventually. We're partners." He ran a hand through his short hair. "It would be worse to wait longer."

"You didn't have to ever tell her! You are a spy for fuck's sake, Clint." Phil was beyond exasperated.

"You know I did," Clint said quietly, looking at the far wall.

"Jesus Christ. You _swore_ to me. You swore that this whole thing wasn't about that!" Now Phil was genuinely angry. Angry at Clint for being so stupid, on behalf of his wife and angry that he was going to have to deal with the fallout.

Sharply, "It isn't." He shook his head, his own sheer and frustration about the situation boiling over. "It isn't about that. That isn't why I brought her in. You must think very fucking little of me if you really think that's why I brought her in." He gave Phil a challenging glare, with the older man looking away first, knowing that Clint was better than that, but still angry.

"Laura and I..." He sighed. "We'll never cross the line. No matter what, I won't do that to Laura."

Coulson struggled with this. He was a father figure to Clint and he knew it. He also knew that Hawkeye's marriage was complicated. Being the agent's handler, he knew exactly how much Clint did or did not go home. "Do you want to talk about it?" He tried to push down his judgment.

Clint slouched down into a chair. "I can't talk to Laura about most things. She doesn't know what I do, what I did. I know that doesn't excuse anything. But we met when we were sixteen for fuck's sake. Both with enough mommy and daddy issues to keep a team of therapists in business for decades. The first one was an accident. I knew she wanted a second baby, and I figured if it made her happy..."

"That's a pretty shitty reason to have a child," Phil said mildly.

"I know," Clint snapped. "It wasn't just that. It's nice to be able to pretend. To pretend that there could be more. But when I'm there, I'm playing a role. I'm Clint, the father and husband and sometimes it's exhausting."

"But you made the choice to do it." Phil was trying to be helpful to his protégé, but part of that was not letting him of the hook so easily.

"Yeah. I did. And maybe I'm wondering if that was the wrong choice. I was desperate to have something that I never had, so I settled on the closest I thought I could get." His voice cracked with pain. They had both settled. Laura wanted out of the circus. She wanted safety and security and children. He could give that to her, but he couldn't be there most of the time.

"Is she happy?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure. Maybe some day what I can give won't be enough for her. But right now we go through the motions and it seems to be enough." Clint hated himself in that moment. He had made some bad decisions, and there was no escaping that.

"Maybe you should ask her." Phil felt a pang of sympathy for all involved.

"Maybe. But I don't think I want to know the answer," he admitted with guilt.

Phil put a hand on Clint's shoulder. "I'm sorry." It was an ugly situation from every angle. Clint had no great options. Coulson could understand the desire for both sides of the coin: someone untouched by the ugliness of the job, and someone who could share the burden. "My only suggestion, is to not rush into anything."

Clint nodded and stood. The status quo had been like this for years, even before Natasha came into his life, and there was no reason to change it immediately.

* * *

After Clint left, there were a lot of thoughts in Natasha's mind, many of them she wasn't even sure how to approach. She didn't normally like to do this during day when there were potentially people around, but it was soothing and distracting. She grabbed her things and headed to the gym.

She found a sub-room easily, locked it and hung an extra towel over the window, another over the camera hidden in the corner. She did not want an audience for what she was going to do. She finished getting ready and then hit 'play' on the small music player she had.

Ballet was not something she practiced frequently anymore, but it had been part of her training in the Red Room. It gave the girls balance and grace, helped ensure their muscles were long and lithe. It wasn't the same as the training cute little girls get in Russia; it was far more harsh and unforgiving, but in the end, she was a beautiful dancer. Like many things from that time, they felt the ends justified the means. She didn't know if they really did, but she couldn't change the past.

Dancing allowed her to put Clint out of her conscious mind, relegating him to the far corners as her mind concentrated on the pull of each muscle, the beat of the music, and the form of her movement. Her subconscious could gnaw at her feelings about the situation as she used the one form of emotional expression that was encouraged by her upbringing.

It was easy for her to lose track of time in the room; that was actually the point. When she was dancing, she wasn't in a SHIELD facility, she wasn't even in the Red Room. She was just dancing in a space where part of her was able to be free.

Natasha was actually too lost in her music to hear the key in the lock, but she did feel the rush of air when the door opened. It was Clint, a worried frown on his face. She looked up at the clock; it had been over 6 hours since she first stepped in the room. She didn't feel ready to leave though, and so she began dancing again.

Clint watched her movements, seeing some of the emotions running through them: pain, confusion, fear and yet still happiness. He opened his mouth to speak but Natasha shook her head and glanced at his shoes. He toed them off, allowing her to take his hand to lead him to the middle of the room.

She used his presence to perform the movements she couldn't alone, surprised though when he was able to provide more help than she expected. He smiled and shrugged slightly, mouthing the word ' _circus_ '. While he was no trained dancer himself, he had been exposed to much from other acts, in addition to the acrobats that often incorporated dance into their show.

They danced slowly and carefully together, Clint far more unsure of his movements than she was. But they made it work, and if someone could have seen it, they would have thought it was beautiful. It was just for the two of them though, a way to move on from the admissions that Clint had made.

Natasha's subconscious finally allowed her to realize that likely nothing was going to change between the two of them. There was a connection and it didn't seem like either of them were willing to give it up, and however that played into Clint and his relationship with his family, that was not for her to judge.

* * *

Later, as Natasha and Clint reclined in bed, she finally spoke to him again. "When's the last time you went home?"

The guilty look flashed on his face again. "Right before the mission where I brought you in." He paused, thinking about what to say next. "Laura and I met in the circus when we were kids. She worked the high-wire. When we met, it was before …" Before he started killing people for money, the words left unsaid.

"Does she know?"

He sighed. "No. She knew the kind of people I spent time with though. I doubt she wants to know."

"Most of your life with her is a lie." There wasn't judgment in her tone.

"Yes." Clint rested his head on Natasha's. "It's nice though to have a friend who understands."

The vague ache returned to Natasha's chest. "It is for me too. Thank you."

Clint kissed the top of her head lightly and they laid in silence for a time. "You're a beautiful dancer," he whispered as she fell asleep.


	12. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: So a few important things to note (besides the fact that I sadly have nothing to do with Marvel. If I did, this would not be Fanon, it would be Canon) This is yet another chapter that went through many incarnations. I wrote and re-wrote a lot. I hope that means I'm not running out of ideas or where to go, but I'd not bet the farm (ha! see what I did there?) Secondly, it seems I usually have only been writing while on cross-country flights. Since I take about 4 of those a month, that's at least encouraging, right? Third order of business. Need awesome Clintasha fics to read. Keep writing! :)
> 
> Hopefully people can understand/empathize with what I'm going with here. I'll be fully honest - I'm putting a lot of the end of my own marriage in here *LOL* More to show that marriages (especially when they were started when very young) can go out with a whimper, not always a bang. My ex and I are great friends still through it all. And I have more in store for Laura in my head-canon anyway ;) (that's where it will be departing from my real life!)
> 
> Thanks for the support and reviews. You all rock out with your socks out.

"Bird should be here in about an hour." Clint returned to the cave where he and Natasha were awaiting extraction after a smooth mission in the Middle East. They had been partners for over a year now. Natasha had earned the trust of SHIELD, or at least the people at SHIELD that mattered the most.

Natasha nodded. They sat in silence for a few moments, both of them closing their eyes as they waited. They had no injuries, but it had been hot as all hell and the coolness of the cave was a welcome change. Natasha had long decided she would never be a fan of the heat.

Finally she spoke; she knew Clint wasn't really asleep. "Do you miss them?"

Without opening his eyes, Clint sighed, now used to Natasha's customary abrupt introduction to difficult topics. "Yes and no." Silence greeted his answer, and he knew that Natasha was waiting for him to explain. "I miss the idea of them. The idea of what life could have been for a normal person."

"You don't go home after every mission." It wasn't accusatory, but she was trying to understand. They didn't talk about it much, but it was the elephant in the room some nights, when the tension between them seemed unbearable, but Clint always kept a certain distance.

In the dim light of the cave, she could see the tension in his jaw and posture. "She actually doesn't want me home much," he admitted. "It's hard for the kids, having me come in and out of their lives. It's better if we have scheduled times with a clear start and end."

"Is it better?" She knew from his posture that he wasn't totally thrilled.

"It's better for them."

"Have you thought about leaving?" She didn't clarify whether she meant Laura or SHIELD, leaving it to his interpretation.

He nodded, head down. "I'm not sure how." He didn't specify either, but Natasha would bet that he meant he had considered both.

"I'm sorry."

"So am I." They waited for the helicopter in silence after that, guilt gnawing at their conscience for all they had done and more recently, for what they wanted to do.

When they returned to base, it went unspoken that they were going to deal with their nightmares alone that night.

* * *

Two weeks later, Clint returned to the farm where he hid his family away from the world. He was greeted by children he barely recognized any more, they had grown so much. In some ways he felt like Santa Claus: a mythical creature that came around on special occasions. As always though, the kids were accepting of him. They had never known a life or father that was different.

When the children were in bed, he sat with Laura, still getting back into the patterns of Clint the family man. They gave each other an awkward smile, it turning more genuine as they both realized it was just as uncomfortable for the other. Clint's expression then turned more serious. "Are you happy?" It was the question he had avoided since meeting Natasha.

Laura's frowned. "Are you?"

Of course she turned it back to him; she tended to be more passive. "That's difficult to say."

She nodded in understanding, his answer leading her to respond. "It's easier sometimes without you here. No one else to have to worry about. I have a nanny for when I need a break from the kids, and I don't have to worry about money." She paused as she thought. "But sometimes I miss you, I miss having a partner here with me." Another pause. "Is there someone else?" She wasn't an idiot and she had known Clint for a long time; she had noticed the change.

Clint frowned. "Also difficult to say." She clearly wasn't going to let him off the hook with that answer so he thought about his next words. "I'm very close to my partner at work." He lifted his eyes to meet hers. He internally winced at the flash of pain in her eyes at his admission. "We've never crossed the line."

"Physically." Accusation was in her tone, which he knew was entirely fair. He nodded in confirmation. He couldn't deny to himself any longer that he didn't have strong feelings for Natasha, though he didn't think he would ever physically act on them. "Are you asking for a divorce?" Her voice was resigned; it wasn't like they had the most normal marriage to begin with.

"No. Not if you don't want one. I care about you and the kids."

"I care about you too." He noted that neither of them spoke of love. But there were thousands of marriages that lacked love; caring was a far cry better than what many people had.

"I need some time to think about this." She stood up. "Thank you for being honest with me." She turned to return to the bedroom. Like with his partner, they both understood without speaking that they would be sleeping alone.

* * *

The next day, while they sat and watched the kids play, sitting in Adirondack chairs on the front porch, Laura broke the silence from the night before. "What would you say if I had a friendship with someone like you did with your partner?"

Clint had considered this same idea. "I think I would be relieved you had someone to lean on since I wasn't there. But I think I might resent it, too."

Laura laughed unexpectedly. "How can we be so close in some ways but so far apart in others." Becoming more serious, she continued. "That sums up a lot of my feelings." She fell silent again. She knew giving him some sort of ultimatum would not end in her favor. "Why _don't_ you want to leave?"

"It's comfortable. I would miss you and the kids. I would worry about your safety if you were out in the world at large. I do love it when I'm here." Those were the easy answers.

She nodded slowly. "But you care about your partner. Why don't you want that with him or her?" It didn't all compute.

" _She_ ," he said, putting subtle emphasis on the pronoun, just for ease of reference. "It's complicated, there's history and issues - "

"- My, but you have a type," Laura interrupted with a smirk. "I thought women were the ones who were supposed to find the broken ones to mend."

"You're not broken." Clint frowned at her.

"I am too, especially when we first got together." She shrugged. "I got pregnant on purpose because I knew you would stay with me." It was the first time she had admitted that out loud to him, though he had suspected from the beginning.

"I don't blame you for that. I love Cooper." He reached over to take her hand and give it a squeeze.

"I know you do. But that doesn't change the fact that you have shitty taste in women." Although her eyes were slightly watery from finally getting the truth off her chest, she retained a small smile. "Is she married too?"

Clint snorted quietly at the thought. "No. But no matter my status, we can't be more than what we are now."

"See? Shitty taste in women." They both laughed softly at that comment. More seriously, Laura continued, "Would you resent me or the kids if I wanted to keep the status quo?"

Horrified at the thought, Clint shook his head without hesitation. "Absolutely not. I just wanted to be honest with you about this. I know there is a lot about my life I can't tell you, but I needed to be honest about this."

"We've made it this far. What happens at your job, stays there." Internally, Laura still retained hope that maybe they could rekindle what they once had, if she could get Clint to leave the military. If she would be patient enough, maybe he would come back to her.

Clint nodded. "And what happens while I'm at my job, is none of my business." He would feel like an ass if it was only one-sided. She should be free to find some support too. "And if you change your mind and want me to go, I will."

"Only if you do the same," she confirmed.

"I assume we won't tell the kids anything?" Clint watched as his children played. He knew he should feel a stronger connection to them than he did, but he suspected his own childhood trauma played into that.

Laura nodded absently. "Easier that way." They both were perhaps desperate to preserve the idea of an idyllic childhood that neither had experienced as children. They sat in silence for a while longer before Laura pushed on his leg. "Go play with the kids. You don't get much time with them, enjoy it."

* * *

"How was your trip home?" Natasha was reading over some files when he returned to her quarters.

"Good. Got some stuff taken care of." He smiled at her, moving over to grab a beer from the fridge.

Natasha nodded to indicate she wanted one too. "Anything you want to talk about?"

"Not right now." He gave a half smile to his partner, handing her the beer then lightly skimming her hair with his hand. "Some day, maybe."

She smiled in return, sipping her beer. "Then sit your ass down and help me figure out the best angle to use for the Jarov mission."

Clint's smile bloomed into a grin, sitting in the chair next to her and putting all the confusing thoughts of Laura and his family out of his mind as he concentrated on the upcoming mission. Being able to be close and work together was enough.


End file.
